So You Think You Can Be President?

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So You Think You Can Be President is a new reality television show where candidates compete for American votes!

Presidential hopefuls must present their positions on major issues in front of a live studio audience then face hard-hitting critiques from our panel of judges. Viewers at home will delight in the spectacle as candidates are challenged in ways never before seen in mainstream media.

In this week’s episode, only two weeks before the election, Senator Obama and Senator McCain have their feet held to the fire over shockingly similar positions on energy and foreign policy.

Who will be this season’s champion and take home the grand prize? You’ll have to watch and decide for yourself, then participate in the show by casting a vote* for your favorite performer on November 4th!

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*Some restrictions may apply. In certain areas these include, but are not limited to, faulty electronic voting systems, racist voter laws and/or voter roll purges. See your local polling place for details.

APPROPRIATED SOURCE MATERIAL:
So You Think You Can Dance  - Season 3 & 4
2008 US Presidential Debates 1, 2 & 3  - PBS, BBC, PBS
Road to the White House  - MSNBC
“The Politics of Dancing”  by Re-Flex

FAIR USE NOTICE:
This video is a satirical transformative work and constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

PRODUCTION INFO:
It is an example of a Political Remix Video and was created by re-cutting and re-framing fragments of pop culture media to construct a new re-imagined narrative.

OTHER VIDEO FORMATS:
Watch in 16:9 widescreen on blip.tv or on imeem. You can also download the higher-res quicktime. Help spread the word and keep the remix online by re-uploading to your favorite video sharing sites!

EXTRA INFO:
Howard Zinn on Obama - video interview
Noam Chomsky on Obama - video interview

MORE RESOURCES:
Rainforest Action Network - ran.org
Power Vote - powervote.org
Iraq Veterans Against the War - ivaw.org
War Resisters League - warresisters.org
Energy Action Coalition - energyactioncoalition.org
Student Environmental Action Coalition - seac.org
Energy Justice Network - energyjustice.net

The Real Power of Human Energy

Another identity correction remix that turns Chevron’s multi-million dollar Human Energy “greenwashing” PR blitz on its head. Though the video targets Chevron Oil and their Orwellian “Human Energy” campaign, it also focuses more broadly on corporate control of global oil supplies and the connection to brutal American foreign policy. In this corrected commercial the company’s true nature is exposed for what it is, a heartless profit-driven oil machine. The Chevron corporation is not only an ecological catastrophe around the world but still does business with the Burma dictatorship, has oil contracts in war-torn Iraq and is responsible for human rights atrocities in the Niger Delta, among other unpleasant and nasty things.

Remix Source Media: Chevron TV ads, US Army ads, BBC News, Discovery Channel’s Future Weapons, the TV show CSI plus several other short clips recorded off television.

You can also see these and other remixes on my Blip.tv and YouTube channels.

Go Army: Bad Guys

A remixed commercial targeting the US Army’s use of torture in Iraq and around the world. The video (re)creates a military recruitment television ad to expose army atrocities as well as highlight the disturbing normalization and acceptance of torture in the collective consciousness of American youth.

The remix is an example of an Identity Correction ad, a term borrowed from political pranksters The Yes Men. Identity Correction functions in Political Remix Videos by mimicking and often appropriating the advertisements of powerful institutions in order to change or “correct” their carefully constructed PR image. I premiered this remix at the 24/7 DIY Video Summit in Los Angeles, February 2008.  I was also curating a screening of Political Remix Video at the event which was put on by USC.

Remix Source Media: US Army ads, TBS TV promo for “Bad Guys Week”, clips from the movie Rendition and the documentary film Taxi to the Dark Side, plus several other short clips recorded off television.

You can also see these and other remixes on my Blip.tv and YouTube channels.